


we're calling you home

by elizajane



Category: Lost Girl (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Multi, Not Beta Read, OT3, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-09-25 22:17:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17129708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/pseuds/elizajane
Summary: Everything in Dyson's experience tells him this shouldn't work. But it does.





	1. wait with me

**Author's Note:**

> This work was written for the Twelvetide Drabbles 2018 challenge. A chapter was written and posted once daily between 24 December 2018 and 6 January 2019. 
> 
> Please join us for the [5th Annual Twelvetide Drabbles Challenge](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TwelvetideDrabbles2019) starting on 24 December 2019!

“Don't,” Lauren says, catching at his wrist as Dyson moves to rise. “Stay.”

He lowers himself back onto Lauren’s sofa, where they’ve been sitting side by side making their way through a bottle of whiskey. _Two_ bottles of whiskey, he corrects himself, glancing at the coffee table.

“I can’t --” Lauren gestures with her empty glass, a careless ellipsis that's contradicted by the bruising grip of her fingers on his wrist. “ -- not alone.” _Wait for her_ , she means.

He inhales. It’s … good, he thinks in surprise. It’s _good_ not to sit with his terror alone.

“Me neither,” he admits. “I’ll stay."


	2. sleep with me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: gifts, surprise, change, something new.

Dyson wakes with the dawn, Lauren a still-slumbering weight against his spine. She has an arm thrown loosely across his hip. Her scent -- both evocative of Bo and entirely her own -- is calming and familiar. Wolf knows that both Lauren and Bo smell of  _ home _ . 

He blinks. There is a short --  _ very _ short -- list of people Wolf has classified as  _ home _ . He had been aware that Lauren has shifted from rival to comrade to tentative friend. This, though, is something new again.

He draws a breath, pulling her scent deep into his lungs, and allows himself to fall back sleep.


	3. you brought coffee

Dyson goes out for a run while Lauren is in the shower. As absurd as it always seems when Bo is out turning the world upside down, and there’s nothing left to do but wait, he still has to show up for his day job or humans will start to wonder.

Returning, he stops at the coffee shop on the corner and buys himself the largest cold brew they offer and a four-shot almond milk latte for Lauren.

Lauren cuddles the cup in both hands with a moan. “ _God_. Did we really … two _whole_ bottles?”

“We really did,” he agrees.


	4. be my friend

He realizes he’s out of his depth seventeen days after they’ve last seen Bo. He’s in Lauren’s kitchen making chili and looks up from the skillet of ground beef to find her watching him. She’s bent over a sheaf of notes and open books, reading glasses on, hair pulled back in a messy knot, and with every other woman he’s ever been with that look would mean drop what you’re doing and kiss me. He realizes that he _wants_ to. He just isn’t sure she wants, too. He only knows more than Bo holds them together now. Maybe that’s enough.


	5. we who have loved and lost

He wakes from the nightmare with a gasp, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets.

“Dyson.  _ Dyson. _ ” Lauren’s calm authority bypasses his human disorientation and allows Wolf to understand they are under no immediate threat. She lays a cool, dry palm against his neck where it should feel like a challenge. It doesn't. He tilts his chin, panting, and she smooths her thumb along his pulse. “Breathe with me,” she murmurs. Her body against his back protection.

“Sorry. Nightmare.” He finally admits.

“I have them too,” Lauren agrees. “Bo?”

He shakes his head. “Not tonight. I live with other ghosts.”

“As do I.”


	6. bless our home

“You’re saying we have a -- what did you call it?” Lauren regards him with a mixture of amusement and scientific curiosity. 

“A  _ nisse _ ,” he says. “A house spirit.” He pours cream into the saucepan and lights the burner.

“One that likes rich oatmeal.”

“Do you have honey?”

She opens a cupboard and passes him a jar. “Rich  _ and  _ sweet. Did I ever tell you my father was a preacher?”

Lauren seldom speaks of anything before the fae. “He’d be against feeding household gods?”

“He’d have called them demons.” Her voice is dry. “There’s a reason we didn’t keep in touch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [nisse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisse_\(folklore\)) (also known as tomte or tonttu) are northern European/Scandinavian house spirits.


	7. unwelcome freedom

It's freedom they don't want. 

“I can hear you growling from here,” Lauren says without looking up from her computer screen.

“If you were a Wolf you'd be growling too,” Dyson points out.

“Mmm,” Lauren responds. “Instead, I'm just over here running a full tox screen” -- she taps her screen -- “on Bo, she's normal for her, and whipping up a few surprises for Rainer should we need them.”

Dyson takes the few steps necessary to press a kiss to Lauren's temple. “You're brilliant,” he murmurs against her skin.

She reaches up to lay a hand to his cheek. “I know.”


	8. we took to the woods

They drive for three hours before Dyson agrees it's remote enough for Lauren to pull off the road.

He steps out of her car, breathing deep and smelling the fir trees, the deer trail, the fresh snow, the nearby stream frozen over.

 _Will you let me?_ she had asked. _Not as your doctor; as your ...friend._ He had felt that hesitation and still wonders what it means. He rolls his shoulders feeling Wolf wriggle with excitement.  

Lauren follows him up the trail, then off it, until he's satisfied. “Here.”

“Should I ...stand back?”

He shakes his head. “Wolf knows you.”


	9. they could not have guessed

“I used to look at photos from my parents’ wedding,” Lauren says. She has her head in Bo's lap and her feet in Dyson's. He and Bo exchange a look but she doesn't seem to know where this is going either. So he continues his light massage of Lauren's feet.

“I remember being so horrified, when I was six or seven, by the idea that I was expected to do  _ that _ with a man.”

Dyson feels his heart falter. It's been too good to last.

“The thing is,” Lauren rolls her head to catch his gaze. “I never imagined  _ you _ .”


	10. in hospital

“We need you.” Lauren's voice is taut with fear. “I can't -- not enough to help her fully heal.”

Dyson is already on his feet. “Where are you?”

“Hospital.” Lauren says.

“I'll be there in ten.”

He makes it in fifteen. Lauren is at Bo's back, skin to skin, and Dyson can smell the blood.

“Only hers,” Lauren says. He nods, stripping off his jacket, shirt, jeans as he crosses the room. Bo struggles weakly for him.

“He's here babe, he's--” Lauren catches his hand as he reaches the bed, squeezing in wordless relief.

“I'm here,” Dyson sinks into their arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote an expanded version of this scene in [doctor's orders](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17553914).


	11. to take your name

“So, what, you want me to be Mrs. Lewis?” Bo crosses her arms.

“If we go as a married couple they'll fall all over themselves to welcome the wealthy, well-connected dykes,” Lauren points out.

Dyson agrees with her, he does. Goddess knows he and Bo have played the happy couple on more than one investigation. So it's stupid for him to feel cold and alone. Stupid to feel a twist of jealousy in his gut.

“...Dyson?” Lauren’s hand is on his arm; Bo reaches for his other hand. “Sweetheart,” Lauren says. “You were growling.”

“Sorry,” he says, breathing deep. “Sorry.”


	12. apart, together

Sometimes, not often but sometimes, Dyson is relieved Bo and Lauren don't _need_ him. He won’t ever say that truth aloud because it smells … weak. Impotent. But there are nights when all he wants is to drift toward sleep, a hand resting on Lauren's hip, fingers against Bo’s wrist, while beside him they move together: the slick sound of fingers, tongues, shaky exhalations, grunts of pleasure. Their scent rolls over him without need to take action. Desire pools in his gut without need to focus. He knows if he said _yes_ they’d say _welcome_. And so he doesn’t have to.


	13. by invitation only

“I'd like you … both. To be my plus-ones.” Dyson fingers the gilded invitation that's more of a summons. He can't _not_ attend Twelfth Night if he wants to stay in the good graces of The Ash. Neither Lauren or Bo have been invited on their own. Dyson arriving with them will be a clear statement.

Lauren looks at him shrewdly and he knows she's hearing what he isn't saying.

“As your … dates.”

“As my --” he struggles for something more neutral than he feels. “-- lovers, yes.”

Lauren and Bo hold a wordless conference before Bo turns back to him: “We accept.”


	14. awaken to greet the day

Maybe he should have trusted sooner, trusted that they want him. Trusted that they are as fiercely committed to him as they are to one another. He wakes on the morning of their handfasting with Bo’s face against his chest and Lauren’s belly to his back and finally understands. In that liminal moment between sleep and wakefulness he realizes that, through action, he entrusted them long ago.

He ghosts a kiss at the corner of Bo’s eyelid, feels Lauren's hips press languidly closer.

“Thank you,” he murmurs a prayer of gratitude to the familiar spirits of their home. “Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I watched most of _Lost Girl_ during 2018 when I was working on a major quilting project and pretty early on knew I wanted to write an OT3 for Lauren/Bo/Dyson during this drabble challenge. I've written M/M/F poly before but not F/F/M and it surprised me that Dyson's voice was the one I found myself using. This drabble series came out of wondering how Dyson -- as a cis man, a werewolf, and someone obviously used to responding to female desire for him -- would experience a growing relationship with Lauren, who is presented in the series as pretty exclusively interested in women. There was a lot of opportunity in 2018 to think about how exhausting toxic masculinity is, and how damaging it can be for men to experience the pressure to be continually interested in (hetero)sex and sexual interactions with women. I wanted to sketch out the shape of a poly relationship that included physical intimacy but also gave Dyson permission to opt out of assumptions about masculinity as he needed to -- to make their relationship a place of rest. Who knows if I succeeded, but I certainly enjoyed the process of creation.


End file.
